re: 2017 Ole Miss Football Suicidal Recruiting Thread

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From yancy.

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As you are aware, I have been very open about the existence of an on going NCAA investigation at the University of Mississippi. While some have been critical of me for my willingness to discuss the matter, I feel it is a matter that impacts the landscape of college football in the state of Mississippi.

For reasons unknown to me, the in-state media by and large has elected to take a pass on this important news story. Most of them have essentially walked in lock step with the talking points of the Ole Miss narrative without question.

I was contacted over two years ago about the ACT issues being investigated regarding David Saunders, Ginny Crager and the allegations made regarding the supervision of the testing center there in Wayne County. I am not going to get into all of the specific allegations, but some of them have now surfaced in the Louisiana-Lafayette NCAA file.

In October of 2014, I was contacted by a friend in Tupelo who caught wind of a neighbor of his being interviewed face to face by the NCAA regarding some potential recruiting violations. Two weeks later, I learned the same NCAA investigator had interviewed folks in and around Jackson.

It was clear this was more than just a fire drill deal.

I tried in vain twice to pass this story along to the Clarion Ledger, because I felt it was really more in their scope of journalism. They had little interest in the story despite the facts. I was recently told that they simply "had too much on their plate". The state's largest newspaper with all of their resources was too busy.

Over the course of the past year, I have not run from discussion about this investigation. I have been criticized and told that I should hold quiet. I will not. What I have said, am saying and will continue to say is true. I have had my integrity called into question over this issue and some have essentially dared me to prove my claims. I have taken steps to do that.

On January 15th, on my direction my attorney prepared a Mississippi Open Records Act Request for the general legal counsel of the University of Mississippi, Lee Tyner. This request was filed on January 16th.

On January 26th, the University of Mississippi legal counsel responded to my request and agreed to provide some of the documents requested. Many of the documents requested involve the current NCAA investigation. According the the Freedom of Information Act, if anyone on that campus has the documents I have requested, then they are bound by the law to provide them.

While I suspect most of the sensitive documents will likely be withheld, we are prepared to pursue legal remedy to obtain them.

The University of Mississippi had 14 business days from the date of my request to supply the documents. Friday the 5th is the final day for the University to comply. I followed up today and found that the person handling my request is out of the office until Monday. I was asked to agree to release those documents next week. I have agreed to that request.

I sent a second request to the University of Mississippi on January 23rd requesting any NCAA Notice of Allegations received by the University during the calendar year 2016. I have not heard back on that request, so I assume it will be addressed along with the University's release next week.

Some will ask why I would take these steps. First of all, I will say that I am only going to be called a liar so many times. I knew that I was right and much of the Forde article released last week confirms what I have shared, but there is more to come. Ole Miss AD Ross Bjork has now acknowledged the receipt of the Notice of Allegations, so there is no longer any question about the existence of the probe or that the situation has risen to the level of allegations being levied by the NCAA.

I am also more than a little tired of people sitting on this story and turning a blind eye to it.

Finally, I am not Riley Blevins and I will not be run off. How he was treated was absolutely shameful. There is a part of me that feels like somebody needed to finish the deal, so that all he had to endure meant something to somebody beyond himself. The truth is the truth no matter how you slice it and frankly I think it's time we all got the truth rather this bill of goods they keep selling us.

I am prepared for whatever the next step may be. I am sure this will be a bumpy ride and that there will be people who try to silence me and I am prepared for that. I will not be intimidated or treated less than for wanting the truth to be known.

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i'm generally a lurker, but, since rumors are encouraged, i thought i would post this here.

i've got a buddy, we'll call him sam, who is a big lsu fan. he lives down in st francisville. his ex-wife's son (would it still be his stepson?) is a trainer for the lsu football team. sam and the kid are still pretty close and they talk fairly regularly. well, sam calls yesterday to talk to me about recruiting. he's a pretty big recruiting junkie, so i'll spare you most of the details of our conversation. over the course of our talk, sam kept using the phrase "snitch u" when it was obvious he was making a reference to state. he was laughing, but i didnt know why in hell he thought it was so funny. sam doesnt really give a damn about state one way or the other, so i thougt it was weird that he was taking shots at them. i finally just stopped him and asked why he kept calling state "snitch u" because it felt like it was some inside joke i was missing, but we were the only two people having the conversation, so it couldnt be. i also really didnt think it was a very funny expression. apparently, he thought he had already explained all of this to me before. here's what it was all about.

sam said that his stepson had a conversation with o sometime toward the end of last month and, in a round about way, asked him about the state dc rumors. he (the kid) said that o told him yeah, that mullen had contacted him about the position after diaz left, but he really didnt go into much detail with him about it other than to tell him he wasnt interested. sam added that his stepson said o was fairly complimentary of mullen, even went as far as to say that what he had done in starkville was "a miracle," but that he didnt think state could ever match or exceed what they did in 2014 again "in the next 100 years." o went on to say that state is a "toxic dump to recruit to right now." he said that a lot of the kids who were recruited by lsu and had also been on visits to state called state "snitch u." some of them told the lsu staff that the whole time they were in starkville on a visit they were constantly hearing about how other schools recruiting them were under scrutiny from the ncaa and might soon get investigated. he said that the kids even mentioned that "their media" (whatever that means, i'm assuming state fansite guys, but i dont know) would call and text them similar things. the recruits said that, while on their visits to starkville, they heard more about other schools, especially ole miss, than they did about state.

apparently, one of the reasons so many of state's coaches are jumping ship is because there is a stigma associated with state among other coaches and athletic programs around the country right now. state has a reputation for making cheating accusations when they lose a high profile recruiting battle. as far as i know, it's only football, but it could be other sports too because, based on my conversation with sam (which was based on his stepson's conversation with o), it sounds like a lot of the allegations are coming from administrators there, not so much the football staff. anyway, it's hard for mullen to attract coaches to state because he has this situation to deal with, but it's even harder for him to retain them because they all want to leave in order to preserve their reputations with other schools and coaches around the country. o told sam's stepson that his contacts from his miami days told him that mullen was really close to getting the job there, but there were just too many red flags with "the whole state thing" and "how they go about business," and they werent sure if he was part of it or not. so, basically, barring an sec west championship, mullen is stuck there. there are also rumors among the coaching ranks that the ncaa takes most of state's accusations lightly because theyre made so frequently.

this all got me to thinking: is there a coordinated effort by mississippi state university's administration to falsely accuse other schools of improprieties? it sure seems so. it just seems kind of odd that the figure of $200,000 is always given as the offer made to induce a prospect to attend school x,y or z. this all seems to have stemmed from the cam newton ordeal. if you remember, the number they claimed his father asked for was $200,000, which was, of course, never proven. i honestly think they are making all kinds of stuff up in starkville.

this could be an explanation for their recruiting woes and inability to hang on to assistant coaches? i mean, "snitch u," that doesnt sound like the kids think starkville/state is a real cool place to be.

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